Alumni Newsletter

KATHY BRADSHAW. Associate professor Kathy Bradshaw celebrates 10 years in the department. [READ MORE]

OLIVER BOYD-BARRETT. Professor Oliver Boyd-Barrett will be on Faculty Improvement Leave for the year 2012 to 2013, principally to progress four book projects on which he is currently working as author or editor. Each of these is related to international or global media and communication. During his sabbatical Boyd-Barrett will spend the fall semester as a visiting professor at the University of California, Riverside during which time he will also undertake teaching for California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. In the spring semester of 2013, Boyd-Barrett will be a visiting professor at Baptist University Hong Kong (with which BGSU is in partnership). Among other things he will teach a graduate class for Hong Kong journalists. He will also lecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

NANCY BRENDLINGER. While on faculty improvement leave, associate professor Nancy Brendlinger was able to accompany her husband to Khujand, Tajikistan, where he is a Fulbright scholar teaching English this spring semester. During the year-long leave, Brendlinger is working on two major projects – researching and developing environmental journalism curriculum and improving her multimedia s kills. In addition to her BGSU projects, in Khujand she has lead a weekly discussion group for high school and college students at the US Embassy funded American Corner at the city library, visited US funded, after school English Access Programs in several towns in northern Tajikistan and has been a guest speaker at Khujand State University. In order to work on multimedia skills, she has been keeping a blog of her Central Asian experiences at nancystan.wordpress.com, which combines photos, video and written information about Tajikistan with personal observations and reports. This audience might find particularly interest the post in February about Tajik journalism, which she wrote after interviewing four journalists in Dushanbe.

CATHERINE CASSARA. Catherine Cassara’s four-year grant project, “Partners for a Sustainable Future: Aiding Future Practitioners in Algerian and Tunisian Environmental Media,” came to a close in 2011. The program was awarded the grant from the U.S. State Department in 2007 and officially started in March 2008 in Tunisia. Seven successful workshops were held in Bowling Green, Tunisia, and Algeria. [READ MORE]

TORI EKSTRAND. The editor of American Journalism invited Tori Ekstrand, associate professor, to join the editorial advisory board. The journal’s editor wrote in an email that the current members of the board think highly of Ekstrand’s research and believe her perspective would be valuable to the growth of the journal.  Ekstrand has also been blogging for the Citizen Media Law Project at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. In March, she presented on the panel “Intellectual Property Issues in Social Media” at the South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, in March. [Link to BGSU Zoom News]

JIM FOUST. Jim Foust, associate professor, presented on the panel "Re-assessing Mid-Century Broadcasting" at Broadcast Education Association annual convention in Las Vegas, April 17. The title of his presentation was “Reinforcing Network Hegemony in TV Frequency Allocations.”

SARA SHIPLEY HILES. Instructor Sara Hiles will present her paper “Climate Change in the Newsroom: Journalists' Evolving Standards of Objectivity When Covering Global Warming” at the International Conference on Culture, Politics & Climate Change in Boulder, Colo., in September.

MIKE HORNING. The newest faculty member of the Department and Journalism and Public Relations, Mike Horning, successfully defended his dissertation in March at The Pennsylvania State University. [READ MORE]

RAY LAAKANIEMI. Ray Laakaniemi retired in 2000 after teaching journalism at BGSU for 22 years. He is enjoying retirement with his wife, Karen. “The Weekly Writer’s Handbook” by the former professor has recently come out in an updated third edition. “It’s a book that you will find in a lot of weekly newsrooms or even daily newsrooms,” department chair Jim Foust said. [READ MORE]

TERRY RENTNER. Terry Rentner achieved the highest rank in higher education at BGSU, being named full professor. She said she felt a sense of relief when she received the promotion letter from the dean and provost. She is the first woman in the journalism department to be promoted to full professor. She hopes to use this position to mentor other women to become successful. [READ MORE]